Fraunhofer IESE supported FibuNet GmbH in the migration of its application to the web with a user experience and architecture concept as well as with the assessment and selection of a suitable web technology.
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What it is all about:
Fraunhofer IESE provides support for the modernization of the FibuNet software with a user experience (UX) concept, a new web technology, and a new architecture design
The challenge:
Making the existing system fit for the requirements of the web
The support:
Fraunhofer IESE optimizes technical and visual components of the FibuNet software
The result:
Safe basis created for the implementation of a web client
Your benefits:
Fraunhofer IESE is your partner – especially for system modernizations
FibuNet offers a very successful software for financial accounting, which has been developed successfully over many years and is used by more than 1,000 customers. The software is an intelligent system for financial accounting, which is operated on-premise as a client-server system; the client was developed as a desktop application in Delphi.
Until now, the FibuNet financial accounting software has been operated on-premise as a client-server system. While the software is characterized by high user satisfaction, its visual appearance is kept rather conventional and functional. In addition, the expansion to a comprehensive cloud offering requires the use of dedicated web technology. Having already successfully implemented a web server, FibuNet is now looking to further modernize the software by developing a web client.
For these reasons, FibuNet decided to modernize their software together with Fraunhofer IESE by developing a web client. However, technologies for web clients hold some challenges that have to be resolved in order to make the migration successful.
Web-based software is fundamentally different from desktop applications: On the web, different interaction mechanisms apply, different technologies are used, and the system architecture must be redesigned to match. Despite these changes, essential quality properties that make the FibuNet software so successful must be maintained: comprehensive support for power users, high performance, and high reliability. To achieve this, solid concepts that set the right course for the path to the web are required prior to implementation.
In order to create a basis for the migration to a web client, Fraunhofer IESE supported FibuNet both from a design and a technical perspective. The basis for the elaboration of corresponding concepts was a walkthrough with real users of the software, during which the users provided feedback on their usage behavior. Workflows and user interactions were analyzed and conspicuous features as well as opportunities for improvement were collected.
Based on this, the team of experts from Fraunhofer IESE developed a user experience (UX) concept with interaction design and visual design for the new web client. Special attention was paid to maintaining the comprehensive user support as well as the fundamental character of the software. In this way, it was possible to create a recognition value for the existing users on the one hand, while taking into account the specificities of web-based applications on the other hand. The entire visual design of the application could be modernized in this manner.
In addition, Fraunhofer IESE prepared the migration to the web client from a technical point of view. Especially the web framework used and the component libraries used have a defining influence on the structure and the technical realization of the application. By deriving suitable criteria, collecting background information, and prototyping and evaluating the technologies in question, Fraunhofer IESE created the basis for a dependable selection. On this basis, FibuNet found a suitable web technology for their client. Furthermore, Fraunhofer IESE considered the impact of the migration on the architecture concepts of the client in order to ensure that the most important quality requirements will be met sustainably.
This is what Ralf Graap, director, FibuNet GmbH, has to say:
Using the concepts developed by Fraunhofer IESE, FibuNet is now able to develop a suitable web client. FibuNet completed the evaluation of the candidates for the technical framework on their own and thereby selected a technology. Based on this and on the UX concept developed, FibuNet and Fraunhofer IESE jointly started the modernization of the successful software.
Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE